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 Neela Sakaria: What inspired you to write The Circle?
H. Edward Schmidt: I wrote The Circle because I thought the world and America in particular was ready for a book that puts a human face on the Palestinians. For over half a century the media has painted the Palestinians as terrorists. Have you ever seen a movie or read a book which treated Palestinians sympathetically? I haven't. Yet when you read the history of the Palestinians, you come to understand the terrible way they have been treated and the injustices they have suffered. If you have the opportunity to meet any of them, you feel shame at having contributed to their suffering, which we have. So the absence of writings and movies about Palestinians clearly belies the richness of the material.
As I think about your question, there was one other thing. It is the irony that this century long struggle is between people who claim the same father, Abraham. I built the story around that theme, where Sarah and Yitzhak, who are Russian immigrants, and Ismael, a Palestinian grow up best friends.
Neela: How long was the process?
HS: I wrote the first draft of the book about seven years ago. A few years ago, I picked it up and started working on it again. I did a fairly major rewrite but it is essentially the same story. I decided to publish it because the awareness of the Palestinians' suffering is much greater today than it was seven years ago. Ironically, that awareness is the result of some very gutsy Israeli historians and social scientists who decided that the lies Israel has been selling the world and its own people about the Palestinians should not be allowed to stand. Much of the research on the book was taken from Israeli and other Jewish writers.
Neela: What effect did your experiences working in government have on your writings?
HS: Working overseas in Africa and Europe opened my eyes to things. In Africa, I worked with the Peace Corps in Ethiopia. Certainly being in places where you were the only white face can be an eye opener. Talking to non-Americans gives you new perspectives.
The exposure to different cultures in Africa takes away a little of the ethnocentrism we nurture in our lives. Poverty and the dignity with which people bear it humbles you and makes you empathize more than you otherwise might.
One of the things that most influenced my views about the world was as a young soldier training in Texas. A trip on a weekend pass across the border to Mexico in the 50's was enough to make you understand that we are very lucky people, and how accidental much of our good fortune really is. I've never forgotten that.
Neela: In some ways the backdrop of the book is very timely in light of the recent events between Palestinians and Israelis. Yet the story takes place in 1918. Can you talk a little bit about that?
HS: People tell me it is timely. I thought it was timely when I began it seven years ago. The perception that it is timely says a great deal about the increased understanding of the plight of the Palestinians. The conditions the Palestinians have been living under haven't changed since they were forced from their homes over fifty years ago. I mentioned the Israeli writers before. Their contribution to a better understanding is the dismantling of the Israeli myth that 700,000 Palestinians left their homes voluntarily in 1948. No one questions today that they were forced from their homes, and their villages wiped off the face of the map by the Israelis.
But why 1918? Well that period was a momentous one for the whole world, including the people who lived in Palestine at the time, 90 percent of whom were Muslims and Christian Arabs. The Ottoman Empire collapsed during the First World War and people living as subjects under the Turks had their freedom for the first time in 400 years. But Zionism or Jewish nationalism was also afoot in the early twentieth century, and their leaders persuaded the British to grant a Jewish homeland on the same land occupied by the newly free Arabs. It was the beginning of today, and you cannot understand today without understanding that period. As I wrote the book, I tried to understand what the Arabs must have felt. All the pronouncements of the victorious powers were about self-determination and freedom for indigenous people, a fancy word for people living on the land. There must have been elation, a spirit of hope that they could build their own future. But to the Arabs, the British say: wait, we have a little surprise for you. We are allowing Jews to immigrate and establish a homeland on your land here in Palestine. And we will occupy the land to see that it happens just the way we agreed with the leaders of the World Zionist Organization that it would. At the beginning of the book, I include four lines from a Dylan Thomas poem:
The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever;
And famine grew; and locusts came'
Great is the hand that holds dominion over
Man by a scribbled name.
I think many Palestinians would agree with that view regarding the actions of the British.
Neela: It seems that your work experiences would have led you to write a non-fiction piece. Why did you choose to write fiction?
HS: One, I wanted to write a story with characters and events I could develop on my own. I wanted it to be a story people would like if they didn't care on whit about what was going on then and now.
Two, fiction gives you more freedom to write about history in a way that supports the story, but is not the story. While I wanted the story to carry the book, I do think I am pretty close to the mark on the feel of the times and the sentiments of real people. A lot of research went into writing the book
Neela: What kind of a response have you gotten?
HS: People who have read the book like it. Some shake their heads at why I would pick the subject. Some say they were moved by the people and events in the book, which pleases me to no end. Some say I didn't know that, meaning the history, and that pleases me. The real test will be when it reaches the shelves. I plan to post reviews I receive on my website: www.upperfallsbooks.com. I hope you will visit.
Neela: What impact do you hope the book will have on its readers?HS: Well, I hope they come to understand the urgency of bringing justice to the Palestinian people, giving them a home and a place to live in peace and enjoy the kind of things everyone deserves. Keep in mind they have been refugees for over half a century. I hope it will cause readers to look further and try to understand who the Palestinians are and what the conflict is all about. Two, I hope people find enjoyment in reading the book, that they like Ismael, Sarah and Father Michael as much as I do and that they like the book enough not to put it down until they've read the last page. Three, I hope this is not viewed as an attack on Jews, which some people will try to make it. But without apology, the book attacks the kind of ethnocentrism that causes oppression of one people by another. If there is a message in the book, it is that there is a roadmap for peace today. In the Epilogue, Professor Malcom says it best when he talks about the struggle for peace that he had witnessed:
"..the answer lies in the hearts of those who struggle for a place in this small piece of land. Let each person acknowledge the rights of others as equal to his own, no greater, no less, and there can be peace."
To rights he might have added humanity, but then the Professor was a pretty independent thinker.
Neela: Any future writing projects?
HS: When I decided to publish The Circle, I started Upper Falls Books. Its motto is The Storyteller's Publisher. I have a number of stories in mind. I have completed a draft of a book about two children who are born to a Prussian family. While in Africa, one is kidnapped and grows up in America and the other in East Africa and Prussia. The first graduates from West Point, the other from the Kriegsacademie. The book is about the brothers' search for each other. It's quite a journey. They both end up running a horse farm in the shadows of the Sangre De Cristo mountains in Colorado. You might be interested to know it is roughly the same time period as The Circle.
Perhaps a follow on to The Circle, talking about another fascinating period in Palestinian history, the revolt of 1936-39. There are several others which are pretty well sketched out in my mind. But first things first.
The Circle: Terror and Triumph in the Holy Land
Publisher: Upper Falls Books
ISBN: 0971757607
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